Back-post #1: A funny monkey story

Hi. I’m back from Jodhpur. I have a lot to say but it will take a while, so I’m going to make a series of posts.

First, a funny monkey story.

Thursday, like so many days here, was a Bad Day. I was in a funk (still am, though it was interrupted by a nice trip to Jodhpur). Megin and I went to the Ramada to have something ridiculously expensive, like an ice cream sundae. The ice cream was okay, but didn’t erase my funkified mood.

As we were walking back from the Ramada, we went along one of the bigger streets to see if the stores were open yet (there was a statewide bund, or closing, that day, declared by one of the political parties for reasons I don’t fully understand). Our Aunti-ji had told us that the stores would be opening later in the afternoon. As we approached one of the cross-streets, we noticed a group of men shouting and throwing stones at the roof of a building. WTF?

As we got closer we could see why: there were several monkeys on the roof, with (surprise!) MANGOES in their hands. And oh, the monkeys looked happy! And they were doing little comic dances! And the people down below did NOT. They looked VERY ANGRY. They would throw rocks and the monkeys would duck as the rocks went sailing by. Then they’d pop their heads back up again, triumphantly holding the mangoes. The whole thing looked like a scene out of a cartoon, it was so perfect, and despite all my ill-humor I burst out laughing on the spot. So there I am, grumpy American girl on the street corner laughing uncontrollably at the mango-stealing monkeys, and suddenly life felt a little bit lighter.

Everyone turned to look at us, of course, but for the first time I didn’t care.